With Tony Stewart's win in the
inaugural Pennzoil 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the Indianapolis
native established a record for number of wins in a single
season by a rookie. But it won't be the record everyone will
remember. Instead, it will be the root-hog maneuver he pulled
on Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Bobby Labonte to collect his second
straight victory, and his third win of 1999. "My spotter told me
as I was coming off pit lane that he [Labonte] was coming on
the outside." Stewart said, who became the second driver this year
to post back-to-back victories. "I got on the throttle as hard
as I could get on the throttle. I figured I had a bumper on him
going into turn three." That's when Stewart dove under Labonte
With his car's fresh tires, his Pontiac stuck briefly to the
inside groove, bobbled, and then slammed into Labonte,
knocking him to the outside of the track and nearly into the wall.
He then pulled away from Labonte while the Texas native wrestled
his mount to keep it from spinning.
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Dale Jarrett exited his Ford, climbed
atop its roof, jumped up and down and shouted. Tears flowed from Todd Parrott's
eyes as he talked about his team and his grandmother, Ruby, who
died less than two weeks ago. Robert Yates seemed as if he were
in shock, preferring to deal with his emotion internally. For
these three men and their crew, who stood in the garage during
post-race inspection and smoked cigars, the Winston Cup
championship was theirs. Even though one race remained, they
held an insurmountable 211-point lead over runnerup Bobby Labonte.
The ups-and-downs, the sleepless nights, the gut-wrenching wrecks, ill-handling
chassis and mechanical woes had been successfully conquered. They
had reached the pinnacle of their sport. A sport that was their home
as children before it became their profession. In his boyhood years,
Jarrett enjoyed two series championships with his father, Ned.
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Rousch Racing teammates Jeff Burton
and Mark weren't really where they wanted to be at the end of the
inaugural Pennzoil 400 at Homestead, but they made the best of
it afterward. While Dale Jarrett clinched the championship and teammates Stewart
and Labonte crushed the field for a second week in a row, Jeff and Mark
took third and fourth, respectively. "We finished first in class,
so I guess that's something," said a weary Burton as he climbed
from his Ford on pit road after the race. But he knew his car
was overmatched. "There ain't no way you can beat those Pontiacs.
They gave 'em a lot of spoiler and a lot of air dam for a long time,
and they started building nice bodies," he said. resignedly. "On
top of that, they're doing great jobs. They got good shocks and springs,
they're doing a great job driving them. And on top of that, they've
got a lot of downforce, so it's difficult to beat them".
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While both Rousch cars were in
the top 10 all afternoon and the top five most of it, neither
driver had anything for Stewart or Labonte. Burton took gas
only on his last pit stop - the rest of the leaders took two
tires and gas - and took the lead briefly on the 248th of 267
laps. Mark took the lead on lap 249 and looked as if he might
try to stretch it to the end on fuel mileage, but he pitted
and surrendered the lead to Stewart on lap 258. Still, Mark
professed to be happy with his afternoon. "We had a great car,
a great setup under that Taurus and I couldn't ask for a better
run," he said. "We had a real good setup under the car and late
in the race there, we got the car a little bit too tight. I
probably overreacted a little bit early in the race. I was
trying to get set up to win the race. We were a third-place
car, a fourth-place car and we tried a little harder."
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And while a win may have eluded the
Roush teams, it was a good day pointswise. Mark virtually clinched third
place in the final 1999 Winston Cup driver standings, with a
127-point lead over Stewart in the standings. And Burton moved
up to fifth, just two points ahead of three-time champion Jeff
Gordon going into the season-ending Nov 21 NAPA 500 at Atlanta.
That, in turn, offers a glimmer of hope for next year. "Time runs
out on everything, " Burton said of Gordon's success. "That's
not saying time has run out on them, I'm just saying it gets
harder and harder to repeat championships for any sport,
whatever you're doing. When you're running second you are
forced to change things and the people that aren't winning the
championships, they change things and some of them hit it and some of them
don't, and the guy that is winning the championships, they tend
to stay the same until people catch them." Jeff and Mark will
get that chance again, but not until next season.
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After being caught up in an
accident in the early laps of the Homestead BGN race, Mark was only
able to finish 14th, one lap down to the leaders. "It's a shame we had to
be caught up in that wreck," he said. "As soon as the race went green, I
could tell there was more than just sheet metal damage. Someone must have
hit the wheels too to mess up the handling that much. Our Winn-Dixie
Taurus was great in practice and we would have had something for them. I'd
like to thank the whole team for a great season. This was one of the best
Busch seasons I've ever had." Mark finished the year with six wins and
three poles in 14 Busch Grand National starts.
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Mark and his Roush Racing team are
hoping to end the 1999 season on a high note, with a victory at Atlanta
Motor Speedway. With the championship now decided, Mark and his team can
focus entirely on winning the race. "The championship race is over so we
don't have to be distracted by that," he said. "We still have an outside
shot at second place, but something big would have to happen to Bobby
Labonte to help us make up 98 points. My goal is to win the race. That is
the same goal I have every weekend. The points are always in the back of
your mind, but every week this team comes to the track determined to win
the race." Atlanta is typically a good track for us. We usually
run well in the fall race," he said. "We finished third last year, but we
didn't really get much of a chance to race since we kept stopping for
rain. We were never really able to get the set-up right last year because
of the weather. We had the same thing happen this spring but managed to
get a third place finish then too." Mark will again drive JR-52 -- the car
he ran at Atlanta in the spring and last weekend in Homestead. After JR-52
was idle from April until September, Mark has driven the car in four of
the last seven races and has placed in the top 10 each time, including a
win in Dover. "I wish we would have brought this car back a long time
ago," he said. "We tried some different stuff during the summer, but found
out that it wasn't as good as what we had. I guess it goes back to the old
saying, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'"
In 27 career starts at Atlanta Motor Speedway,
Mark has two wins, one pole, seven top-five finishes and 13 top 10s. He
has won $777,485 in his Atlanta Winston Cup career.
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